Friday, May 16, 2003

Take you sideUsing both linux and windows frequently is never easy. The famous / inclined one way or the other, interchanging $ for a %% in variables - these and more are common to the fledge Bi-OS-ist. It would be wonderful to have an OS that stops complaining and obeys its master irrespective of what the command means. A more supportive message such as "Do you want me to learn that command?" or "Shall I operate as that OS now?" instead of a niggling error message is welcome.

I guess the problem is being faced by everybody otherwise cross-tools wouldn't exist in the first place. Sometimes this is challenging [and trivial] trying to figure out ways in which tasks could be accomplished. This has driven the use cross-OS-tools.

Portability is the order of the day. In addition to programs, commands for on OS should also be added to the portability list. The initiative by mtools, Wine, Cygwin and others in this regard brings light to the developers dark room.

I recollect that sometime in my early years in college, I had the Unix prompt changed to the familiar DOS prompt leaving my batchmates trying out DOS commands. Some of the DOS commands were also wrapped as shell scripts. It was long after when the admin tried to intervene, when one of all-too-familiar commands failed to work, that things were revealed. These days one would install products like VMWARE and be able to do things much better than that.

It would be wrong to draw a veil over the choice of OS platforms. There are more OSes available today than the varieties in the Indian curry! The day when the OS just understands what is to be done based on the situation [time, user expressions, access] is probably is near.

Friday, May 02, 2003

08:40 PM 02-May-03

Information. Everything else is your imagination.

RoadRunnerRoadRunner is the state bird of New Mexico. True to its name, the bird runs more than it flies. The bird spreads its wings as a cup during the mornings to absorb maximum sunlight. More information on this bird can be found here:
http://www.desertusa.com/mag98/sep/papr/road.html